Sapphire 7970 Literally Caught Fire Too

cyclone, I'm, confused. Why did Newegg RMA a MB you had already RMA'd to ASUS? Why wouldn't you have done that in the first place (newegg)?
 
I had similar problems with video cards, no physical damage or whatever but the culprit was the Corsair TX750 power supply. It was surging and finally the motherboard managed to detect the surge and refused to POST with the PSU. You should fight them harder for a replacement. Try and use twitter or facebook to complain publicly if they won't budge. Ask for supervisor or somebody else to speak with when calling. They should honor the warranty.
 
Wow, didn't another user had his Asus card caught fire too.

Had no idea a graphic card could be a fire hazard :eek:

Pretty shitty of them to not RMA it though
 
Hornet said:
Wow, didn't another user had his Asus card caught fire too.

Had no idea a graphic card could be a fire hazard :eek:

Pretty shitty of them to not RMA it though
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No kidding. It's kind of making me question whether my case should be open...
 
Had a very similar thing happen earlier this year. Only it was with a evga gtx670 in the 2nd pci-e 16x slot (was running sli) on a asus p8z77-v deluxe.
Just playing Borderlands 2, then POOF! red screen, lockup, mobo screaming, and then I see fire coming off the video card right where it meets the slot. The burn was very similar to where it was NickJames's pic, only it was on the back side of mine. What was weird was I had a hard time actually finding any circuitry where it looked like the fire stared, just, board and mobo slot.

In the end I couldn't figure out what caused the failure. Maybe just a chunk of dust landing in the perfectly wrong spot. *shrugs*
Called evga and sent them pictures of the damage, they rma'd the video card without question, so I was very happy about that.
The mobo I just removed the burnt pci slot. Now it runs happily in my secondary system.
PSU was a XFX 1250 Black Edition. Still running it without problems.
 
not sure if it helps the cause but i love how my video cards are vertical in my case. no worrying about heatsink weight
 
I have had very good experience with Asus for RMA and direct support numerous times, they are quite good if you are honest with them.

But yes irregular voltages can cause nasty things to happen think brownout or surges these are considered irregular, and a TX power supply is more main stream not that they are bad but as someone else pointed looks like it may not have been latched in properly and to my eyes by those pictures one of the gold fingers looks like it delaminated some so it could explain why all of a sudden it went poof, not latched proper, bad spike or odd load, and maybe not properly made on the pcb side.

It could be considered physical damage BUT that seems more like electronic manufacturing issue to me, if it was the motherboard it should have popped some caps, if it was psu it probably would have popped as well, looks to be bad load or contact on gold fingers, a surge in one of the lines say 12v on the first pin more then it should have had could overload it easy as pie, to much resistance on a finger cause of bad lamination or possibly being dirty/corroded could also cause it to fail under extended loads.

This has happened to many in the past with many different cards of different generations AND just cause cards have a certain rating does not mean they cannot surpass it, say if required 90 watts from slot itself when slot was designed to give 75 by design/safety tolerance it could take time but would eventually fry it, again this has happened many times over the years.

There are charts on this, many cards from Nvidia, AMD, ATi went beyond spec(sometimes drastically so) for power draw given certain games/loads, Nv has been given great grief over the years for doing this exceeding safety or design rules just to sell the card,, and condemning other makers for being "high power use" but most of the other makers also did not exceed the same guideline in the process. I cannot find the article I was thinking of but this is a decent guide for baselines, some cards as stated can and do go beyond for one reason or another, and some draw far more then they should off of one source so can lead to nasties.
http://forum-en.msi.com/faq/article/printer/power-requirements-for-graphics-cards

one should take into account system on a whole, just cause it is x watts available doesn't matter, of course amps matter just as much. Sometimes things just go bad nothings perfect.
 
Goodluck to your friend OP..I really think that Kyle/Steve and some other tech sites really need to call these Asian companies out on their shitty, sometimes downright illegal denials of warranties they advertise but NEVER intend to honor..

The attitude of the Asus Rep in the other 7950 thread really pissed me off, and it wasn't even my card! I can only imagine the RAGE the OP must be feeling going through all this crap..

It's sad to think we would even have to resort to this, but maybe some class action suits need to be filed to bring this stuff out in a way the companies really don't want!
 
Flyinfinni said:


This is the damaged area of the card- you can see 2 small capacitors in this location- I have seen several times small caps (likely ceramic) develop a crack and ultimately pop, causing this type of damage. My guess is that this is what happened- one of those caps let go and CAUSED the damage.
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Um those are smd resistors, and if they did go bad I don't see them causing any fire or melting.
 
Rizen said:
I love how Sapphire's response is really not unreasonable, and yet people are immediately jumping on them for shitty support.

Often when things die in a dramatic fashion, it is the fault of the power supply. Before you use that PC again, test the power supply and ensure that you are getting stable voltage across all the rails (12V, 5V, 3.3V). I wouldn't be surprised if the PSU was the culprit.
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I had a problematic PSU for a good while too. Browsing, gaming, even checking outlook, I would never know if it was going to cut out. I was thinking it was the Video card or the MB, I even got a PSU Volt tester to verify my voltages and they were fine. I even swapped PSU's at one point but the problem was still there. So finally I took apart my PSU (out of warranty) and looked at it and sure enough, bad caps, since replacing my PSU, I have not had any freeze/memory dump since.
 
Joshua said:
Um those are smd resistors, and if they did go bad I don't see them causing any fire or melting.
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The bigger component looks just like capacitors I've used for years. Resistors like that usually have a black, green, or blue top color depending on who makes them and have numbers on them indicating the resistance usually. The picture is to small for me to make out exactly what the smaller component is.
 
Root Cause Failure of something like this is almost impossible to nail down. But at least no one got hurt right?
 
Joshua said:
Um those are smd resistors, and if they did go bad I don't see them causing any fire or melting.
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I guarantee you that the top one for sure is an SMT (Surface Mount Technology- not smd) capacitor not resistor. I am an electrical design engineer- I think I know what I'm looking at. If it were a resistor and went bad, you are correct, it likely wouldn't cause a problem, as resistors are more likely to burn open, but if its a multi-layered ceramic cap, it could easily crack and short especially if the card wasn't quite seated properly and/or was sagging a little under its own weight.
 
Flyinfinni said:
I guarantee you that the top one for sure is an SMT (Surface Mount Technology- not smd) capacitor not resistor. I am an electrical design engineer- I think I know what I'm looking at. If it were a resistor and went bad, you are correct, it likely wouldn't cause a problem, as resistors are more likely to burn open, but if its a multi-layered ceramic cap, it could easily crack and short especially if the card wasn't quite seated properly and/or was sagging a little under its own weight.
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BURN! Sorry... had to.
 
Larger pic of 7970 reference PCB.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/images/front_full.jpg

Tech(AlthonMicro)

Thank you. I have got the factory to agree to take your card back for a failure analysis report, they will test the card and assess if the damage was caused by something else and process the card accordingly, this will take up longer time for us to process the RMA, because we will have to ship the card back to China. If you are okay with that, we will send you the RMA request form for you to send your card back to us.

Tech
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So to further investigate they need to send the card to China, awesome. They are really going all out to avoid having to replace the card.
 
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NickJames said:
Larger pic of 7970 reference PCB.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/images/front_full.jpg



So to further investigate they need to send the card to China, awesome. They are really going all out to avoid having to replace the card.
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Nice pic- thanks for that. Both clearly capacitors from that pic (not the ref des silk screen- both are C# indicating capacitor), and you can clearly see the trace coming from pin 3 or 4 (hard to tell which) going to the caps there. Clearly, the caps blew. Either they went bad and blew on their own, or they were overloaded. If the failure was immediate (pop/smoke/done), then its likely the caps losing it on their own. if it was a longer duration failure (smoke/pop/extended slower burning etc.) it is likely they were overloaded. From the picture, looks like a pretty catastrophic failure (I've seen this in my work several times) with the way the copper layer above it was peeled up, but its hard to be sure since I didn't witness the failure. Without actually putting my hands on the card and doing some additional investigation on the PSU etc. its impossible to know exactly what happened. Still- this looks like something that Sapphire SHOULD replace under warranty.
 
To me what it looks like is that the copper pulled way to many amps and got way to hot causing the pcb to catch fire. But that's what I think.

I install car stereos and I see people putting way to small gage wire for there 1000watt amps and causing a wire fire in the cars.

I hope they cave in and rma your card.
 
SputNick7 said:
To me what it looks like is that the copper pulled way to many amps and got way to hot causing the pcb to catch fire. But that's what I think.

I install car stereos and I see people putting way to small gage wire for there 1000watt amps and causing a wire fire in the cars.

I hope they cave in and rma your card.
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This is pretty much what would happen if one of the caps cracked and shorted, as it would cause it to draw huge current- It would burn and the cap would blow extremely quickly.
 
What I don't understand, from a corporate point of view, is why they're basically stonewalling a customer who would gladly buy a new high end card from them in the future if they quickly took care of this. Replacing last year's card isn't expensive; they sell many thousands. To give a couple of computer enthusiasts a hard time is really bad PR. Add that to the decision not to address the issue of only three of the five heat pipes having contact with the GPU, makes you wonder if they think just having the biggest video card is enough to convince people it's also the best. At least, that's the impression I'm getting from all this.
 
nightfly said:
What I don't understand, from a corporate point of view, is why they're basically stonewalling a customer who would gladly buy a new high end card from them in the future if they quickly took care of this. Replacing last year's card isn't expensive; they sell many thousands. To give a couple of computer enthusiasts a hard time is really bad PR. Add that to the decision not to address the issue of only three of the five heat pipes having contact with the GPU, makes you wonder if they think just having the biggest video card is enough to convince people it's also the best. At least, that's the impression I'm getting from all this.
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That's a good point. It also interests me that they're willing to start an internal investigation - costing God knows how much in labor - without shipping out a new card in the meantime. Spectacular fiery failures are pretty rare, so regardless of how hard it is to pinpoint the root cause with certainty, it can't be that expensive to give customers the benefit of the doubt and assume your product was at fault for RMA purposes in these rare cases. It strikes me as pretty penny-wise and pound-foolish, and they should really try reading "The $100,000 Salt and Pepper Shaker" from The Last Lecture.
 
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It may just be the accelleration of end game management decisions, where they do absolutely anything to temporarily increase the bottom line and completely forget about future sales. We see that a lot in poor economies, where managers realize their time in the current company may be limited, so they make all kinds of moves that, while good for immediate good numbers, cause disastrous problems down the line when the company's reputation has turned to crap.
 
wow, 7950 have some major issues maybe? This is the second 7950 tho first with Sapphire who have caught fire... in the past few months.
 
Wow, thats even worse than PNY treated me a long time ago. Had a retail Ti-something (been too long) that was 128bit, 128meg memory. When I finally got my replacement (close to 4 months later) I got a OEM 64bit, 64meg card. Called back and told them that this was not what I sent in, they told me too bad, that is what I was getting. Filed a BBB complaint and bought a different card. To this day I still will not touch anything PNY made.
 
depends on if the cards in question are running beyond spec as well this has been known tons of in the past, numerously with ALOT of NVidia cards. I seriously doubt it is a 7950 issue or 7970 issue as a whole, having people use them on barely capable PSU would def cause some issues, but just like x amount of 1000s of hard drives just outright fail this could be one of those things, even with insane quality control things happen, maybe it weighed a bit more, caps weren't quite a well bonded etc. It happens, still sucks, but it happens.

I know Asus are usually good for RMA in many cases you would not think they would be, part of the reason they sell lots, why Sapphire wouldn`t and for that matter want to do full investigation is very odd to say the least, 1 of 2 things, card loaded improperly more then its specs would allow it to, or pci-e port on motherboard fed far to much power to a certain pin cause of bad latching or power delivery which can happen as well. Hope this works out for you, this could be another reason to support one company and get away from another :p
 
Tanis143 said:
Wow, thats even worse than PNY treated me a long time ago. Had a retail Ti-something (been too long) that was 128bit, 128meg memory. When I finally got my replacement (close to 4 months later) I got a OEM 64bit, 64meg card. Called back and told them that this was not what I sent in, they told me too bad, that is what I was getting. Filed a BBB complaint and bought a different card. To this day I still will not touch anything PNY made.
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that's just terrible, course I know someone who had similar happen recently with a 5850 think was powercolor they were "willing" to replace with a 7750 as they were similar cost, he said fk that keep the damn card its the last time I EVER shop with you and will make sure none of my friends do either.
 
It could also have been a bug.
No, really, a bug, the kind that crawls around...

I have seen that happen to another board...

For the PSU, unless you have access to a scope, then you can't tell anything by using those crappy PSU "testers".

If I was Sapphire, I still would issue a RMA for the card, even if it wasn't their fault (unless it was water damage from a leaking water cooled system). That is just good customer service.
 
Hornet said:
Wow, didn't another user had his Asus card caught fire too.

Had no idea a graphic card could be a fire hazard :eek:

Pretty shitty of them to not RMA it though
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Yup.......same card, same spot, different cooler set-up.
Except it's an ASUS and they are jerking the guy all over the place.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040042473&posted=1#post1040042473

I've dealt with Athlon-Micro in a Sapphire RMA in the past. They were very professional and communicated with me all along the way.
I had a dead HD 4890. I couldn't find the receipt of purchase to save my life......not purchased from newegg or Amazon, but they honored the warranty without a problem.....due to the lost receipt I think they charged me 15 dollars or something like that, not a big deal IMO. Got a brand new replacement.:D
 
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Mini-Me said:
That's a good point. It also interests me that they're willing to start an internal investigation - costing God knows how much in labor - without shipping out a new card in the meantime. Spectacular fiery failures are pretty rare, so regardless of how hard it is to pinpoint the root cause with certainty, it can't be that expensive to give customers the benefit of the doubt and assume your product was at fault for RMA purposes in these rare cases. It strikes me as pretty penny-wise and pound-foolish, and they should really try reading "The $100,000 Salt and Pepper Shaker" from The Last Lecture.
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I'd say the "internal investigation" mumbo-jumbo is all crapola. They certainly aren't going to spend another nickel on a defective PCB. They're just trying to discourage you and shake you loose--they figure you've got plenty of dough and so you should just buy another card. Its that inscrutable Asian logic, don't'ya know...;)

If folks are going to spend over $200 these days for cards I'd say go ahead and buy the extra-cost exchange warranties that places like NewEgg offer for a few bucks--~$15 or so isn't bad for a year or two's peace of mind. OTOH, thinking like that with every component in the box will quickly add up to a sizable amount of money--all of it very possibly unnecessary. IMO, best overall rule of thumb is to self insure--or else buy only from vendors you know will honor the products you buy from them even a year later--Best Buy actually fully credited me for stuff I'd bought *18 months* earlier that went bad (because I'd pack-ratted the original sales ticket.) But, I paid more to buy it there, too. Minimize your risks the best way you can and hope for the best--it's never going to be perfect, etc. It's like the "Life-Time Warranty" thing, whether you hear it from house painters or IHVs, it doesn't mean a plugged nickel if you can't find them when you need them, or they've gone out of business, etc. Caveat Emptor.
 
I have never had a problem RMAing an EVGA or XFX card.. hell, even HIS didn't give me any lip. I just don't understand why Sapphire is being so difficult.

EVGA, never change.
 
Just a quick update, Sapphire came through and decided to replace the card. My friend got a working 7970 back from them about 3 weeks ago. GG Sapphire, faith restored.
 
That's good... I really didn't understand why they would go through the trouble of investigating the root of the problem... All that time and effort would have cost them more than just sending you a new card anyway.
 
NickJames said:
Just a quick update, Sapphire came through and decided to replace the card. My friend got a working 7970 back from them about 3 weeks ago. GG Sapphire, faith restored.
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Putting up this much of a fight about returning it and taking 3 months to do is isn't exactly faith restoring to me.
 
Fighting for months over a fucking catastrophic failure-type RMA, and even then still requiring public shaming to get them to move on it, is exactly what I expect from Sapphire. ASUS too.
 
requiem99 said:
Fighting for months over a fucking catastrophic failure-type RMA, and even then still requiring public shaming to get them to move on it, is exactly what I expect from Sapphire. ASUS too.
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What company is different? Name any and I will link at least 1 thread of someone complaining about their support.
 
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